The journeyman engineer tells us one day as he was walking along with a
mate in the country, he spoke of the beauty of the surrounding scenery
and of the magnificent sight which met their eyes. “Oh, blow the sights
of the scenery,” said his companion, “the sight for me is a
public-house.” It is the same everywhere. I was once travelling in a
third-class carriage from Newry to Belfast, when I heard the most
atrocious exclamations from a party of young men seated at the other end,
all offering to break each other’s heads in the name of the Holy Father.
On my intimating that it was a pity young men should thus get into that
state to a respectable farmer by my side, his only reply was, “Sure,
what’s the good of a drop of drink if it don’t raise something?” Once
upon a time I spent a Sunday in a little village inn in North Wales. To
my disgust there stumbled into the little parlour a young man, dressed
respectably, who had evidently been heavily drinking. As he lay there
with his stertorous snore, all unconscious of the wonder and the beauty
of the opening day, it seemed to me that it was a sad misuse of the term
to say, as his friends would, that he had been in search of amusement.
As a reverend divine took his seat in a train the other day there
stumbled into it a couple of young fellows, one with his face very much
bruised and cut about—who soon went off to sleep—while his companion
explained to the minister that they had both of them been enjoying
themselves. In the more densely populated and poorer districts of the
metropolis there is an immense deal of this kind of enjoyment.
To see the people enjoying themselves, I went the other night down the
Whitechapel and Commercial Road district. As I turned the corner of
Brick Lane I asked a tradesman of the better class if he could direct me
to a very celebrated music-hall in that neighbourhood. “It is over that
way,” said he with a strong expression of disgust. “It’s a regular sink
of iniquity,” he added. As I was not aware of that, I merely intimated
my regret that it was so largely patronised by working men, and that so
much money was thus wasted, which might be applied to a better purpose.
“Well, you see,” said my informant, “they don’t think of that—they know
there is the hospital for them when they are ill.” On my remarking that
I was going to Brick Lane prior to visiting the music-hall, he intimated
that I had better button up my coat, and when I said that when out on
such expeditions as I was then engaged in, I never carried a watch and
chain worth stealing, he remarked that if the people did not rob me, at
any rate they might knock me down. However, encouraged by his remarks
that the people were not so bad as they were, I went on my way.
Apparently the improvement of which my informant spoke was of a very
superficial character. Coming from the Aldgate Station at the early hour
of six, I found every drinking shop crammed, including the gaudy
restaurant at the station, and descending to the filthiest gin-palace,
there were the men drinking, and if they were not drinking they were
loafing about in groups of by no means pleasant aspect. When at a later
hour I returned, the sight was still sadder, as hordes of wild young
girls, just emancipated from the workshop, were running up and down the
streets, shrieking and howling as if mad. As most of the shops were then
closed, the streets seemed almost entirely given over to these girls and
their male friends. In the quarter to which I bent my steps the naval
element was predominating, and there were hundreds of sailors cruising,
as it were, up and down, apparently utterly unconscious that their
dangers at sea were nothing to those on land. Men of all creeds and of
all nations were to be encountered in search of amusement, while hovered
around some of the most degraded women it is possible to imagine—women
whose bloated faces and forms were enough to frighten anyone, and to whom
poor Jack, in a state of liquor, is sure to become a prey. To the low
public-houses of this district dancing-rooms are attached, and in them,
as we may well suppose, vice flourishes and shows an unabashed front. I
must say it was with a feeling of relief that I found a harbour of refuge
in the music-hall. Compared with the streets, I must frankly confess it
was an exchange for the better. On the payment of a shilling I was
ushered by a most polite attendant into a very handsome hall, where I had
quite a nice little leather arm-chair to sit in, and where at my ease I
could listen to the actors and survey the house. The place was by no
means crowded, but there was a good deal of the rough element at the
back, to which, in the course of the evening’s amusement, the chairman
had more than once to appeal. From the arrangements made around me, it
was evident that there was the same provision which I have remarked
elsewhere for the drinking habits of the people. There was a side bar at
which the actors and actresses occasionally appeared on their way to or
from the stage, and affably drank with their friends and admirers. The
other day I happened to hear a thief’s confession, and what do you think
it was? That it was his mingling with the singers off the stage that had
led to his fall. He was evidently a smart, clever, young fellow, and had
thought it a sign of his being a lad of spirit to stand treat to such
people. Of course he could not afford it, and, of course, he had a fond
and foolish mother, who tried to screen him in his downward career. The
result was he embezzled his employer’s money, and, when that was
discovered, imprisonment and unavailing remorse were the result. To the
imagination of raw lads there is something wonderfully attractive in the
music-hall singer, as, with hat on one side and in costume of the loudest
character, and with face as bold as brass, he sings, “Slap, bang! here we
are again!” or takes off some popular theatrical performer or some
leading actor on a grander stage. On the night in question one singer
had the audacity to assume as much as possible the character of the
Premier of our day, not forgetting the long gray coat by which the Earl
of Beaconsfield is known in many quarters. Comic singing, relieved by
dancing, seemed to be the staple amusement of the place, and when one of
the female performers indecently elevated a leg, immense was the
applause. All the while the performances were going on, the waiters were
supplying their customers with drink, and one well-dressed
woman—evidently very respectable—managed a couple of glasses of grog in a
very short while. But mostly the people round me were quiet topers, who
smoked and drank with due decorum, and who seemed to use the place as a
kind of club, where they could sit comfortably for the night, and talk
and listen, and smoke or drink, at their pleasure. It is hardly
necessary to say that the majority of the audience were young men. The
attendance was not crowded. Perhaps in the east of London the pressure
of bad times is being felt. The mock Ethiopian element, next to the
dancing, was the feature of the evening’s amusements which elicited the
most applause. It is a curious thing that directly a man lampblacks his
face and wears a woollen wig, and talks broken English, he at once
becomes a popular favourite.
A few nights after I found myself in quite another part of London—in a
music-hall that now calls itself a theatre of varieties. It was a very
expensive place, and fitted up in a very costly manner. You enter
through an avenue which is made to look almost Arcadian. Here and there
were little rustic nooks in which Romeo and Juliet would make love over a
cheerful glass. Flunkeys as smart almost as Lord Mayors’ footmen took
your orders. It was late when I put in an appearance, and it was useless
to try and get a seat. It was only in the neighbourhood of the
refreshment bar that I could get even standing room, and being a little
taller than some of the stunted half-grown lads around me, could look
over their heads to the gaudy and distant stage. I did not hear much of
the dialogue. Old Astley, who years before had lived in that
neighbourhood, and knew the art of catering for the people, used to
remark when the interest of the piece seemed to flag, “Cut the dialogue
and come to the ’osses,” and here the stage direction evidently was to
set the ballet-girls at work, and it seemed to me that the principal aim
of the piece was to show as many female arms and legs as was possible. I
am not of Dr. Johnson’s opinion that it is indecent for a woman to expose
herself on the stage, but I was, I own, shocked with the heroine of the
evening, whose too solid form in the lime-light—which was used,
apparently, to display all her beauties—was arrayed in a costume, which,
at a distance, appeared to be of Paradisaical simplicity, more fitted for
the dressing-room of the private mansion than for the public arena of the
stage. There was, I doubt not, animated dialogue, and the swells in the
stalls, I daresay, enjoyed it; but for my shilling I could see little,
and hear less; and weary of the perpetual flourish of female arms and
legs, I came away. What I did most distinctly hear were the orders at
the bar for pale ale and grog, and the cry of the waiter, as he pushed on
with his tray well filled, of “By your leave,” to the crowd on each
side—all of whom had, of course, a cigar or short pipe in their mouths,
and were evidently young men of the working class. That evening’s
amusement, I am sure, must have taken some two or three hundred pounds
out of their pockets. But I saw no one the worse for liquor, though the
public-houses all round were crowded with drunken men and women; for the
morrow was Sunday, and who can refuse the oppressed and over-taxed
working man his right to spend all his week’s wages on a Saturday night?
One night last winter I was at a meeting held in the Mission Hall, Little
Wild Street, at which some three hundred thieves had been collected
together to supper. One of them, who had seen the evil of his ways,
said: “The greatest curse of my life was the music-halls. They have been
the means of my ruin;” and the way in which that speech was received by
his mates evidently testified to the fact that the experience of many was
of a similar character. I said to him afterwards that I knew the
music-hall to which he referred, and that I had calculated that on an
average each man spent there two shillings a night. “Oh sir,” was the
reply, “I spent a great deal more than that of a night.” If so, I may
assume that he spent as much as four shillings a night—and that, as the
place was his favourite haunt after office-hours, he was there every
night in the week, this would make an expenditure of one pound four
shillings—a sum, I imagine, quite as much as his wages as a poor clerk.
What wonder is it that the silly youth became a thief, especially when
the devil whispers in his ear that theft is easy and the chance of
detection small? The one damning fact which may be charged against all
music-halls is that their amusements are too high in price, and that
every device is set to work to make people spend more money than the cost
of the original admission. In the theatre you may sit—and most people do
sit all the evening—without spending a penny. In the music-hall a man
does not like to do that. He drinks for the sake of being sociable, or
because the waiter solicits him, or because he has drunk already and does
not like to leave off, or because he meets doubtful company at the bar,
or because the burden of every song is that he must be a “jolly pal” and
that he must enjoy a cheerful glass. I can remember when at one time the
admission fee included the cost of a pint of beer or some other fluid.
Now drink is an extra, and as the proprietor of the music-hall, to meet
the competition all round him, has to beautify his hall as much as
possible, and to get what he calls the best available talent, male or
female—whether in the shape of man or ass, or dog or elephant, or
monkey—he is of course put to a considerable extra expense; and that of
course he has to get out of the public the best way he can. No one loves
to work for nothing, and least of all the proprietor of a music-hall.
Talking of “pals” and “a cheerful glass” reminds me of a scene which made
me sick at the time, and which I shall not speedily forget. On the night
of the Lord Mayor’s Show, I entered a music-hall in the north of
London—in a region supposed to be eminently pious and respectable, and
not far from where Hick’s Hall formerly stood. As I saw the thousands of
people pushing into the Agricultural Hall, to see the dreary spectacle of
an insane walking match, and saw another place of amusement being rapidly
filled up, I said to myself: “Well, there will be plenty of room for me
in the place to which I am bound;” and it was with misgiving that I paid
the highest price for admission—one shilling—to secure what I felt, under
the circumstances, I might have had at a cheaper rate. Alas! I had
reckoned without my host. The hour for commencing had not arrived, and
yet the place was full to overflowing. Mostly the audience consisted of
young men. As usual, there were a great many soldiers. It is wonderful
the number of soldiers at such places; and the spectator would be puzzled
to account for the ability of the private soldier thus to sport his
lovely person did not one remember that he is usually accompanied by a
female companion, generally a maid-of-all-work of the better class, who
is too happy to pay for his aristocratic amusements, as she deems them,
on condition that she accompanies him in the humble capacity of a friend.
Soldiers, I must do them justice to say, are not selfish, and scorn to
keep all the good things to themselves. As soon as they find a
neighbourhood where the servant “gal” is free with her wages, they
generally tell each other of the welcome fact, and then the Assyrian
comes down like the wolf on the fold.
Well, to continue my story. On the night, and at the place already
referred to, they were a very jolly party—so far as beer and “baccy” and
crowded company and comic singing were concerned. They had a couple of
Brothers, who were supposed to be strong in the delineation of Irish and
German character, but as their knowledge of the language of the latter
seemed simply to be confined to the perpetually exclaiming “Yah, yah!” I
had misgivings as to their talents in that respect, which were justified
abundantly in the course of the evening. Dressed something in the style
of shoeblacks, and wearing wooden shoes, which made an awful noise when
they danced, the little one descries his long-lost elder brother, to whom
his replies are so smart and witty that the house was in a roar of
laughter, in which I did not join, as I had heard them twice already.
After they had finished we had a disgustingly stout party, who was full
of praise of all conviviality, and who, while he sang, frisked about the
stage with wonderful vivacity and with as much grace as a bull in a
china-shop, or a bear dancing a hornpipe. As he sang, just behind me
there was all at once a terrible noise; the chairman had to call out
“Order,” the spectators began howling, “Turn him out;” the singer had to
stop, the roughs in the gallery began to scream and cheer, and the bars
were for a wonder deserted. In so dense a crowd it was so difficult to
see anything, that it was not at once that I discovered the cause of the
disorder; but presently I saw in one of the little pews, into which this
part of the house was divided (each pew having a small table in the
middle for the liquor) a couple of men quarrelling. All at once the
biggest of them—a very powerful fellow of the costermonger type—dealt his
opponent—a poor slim, weedy lad of the common shop-boy species—a
tremendous blow. The latter tried to retaliate, and struggled across the
table to hit his man, but he merely seemed to me to touch his whiskers,
while the other repeated his blow with tremendous effect. In vain the
sufferer tried to get out of the way; the place was too crowded, and with
a stream of blood flowing from his nose he fell, or would have fallen, to
the earth had not some of the bystanders dragged him a few yards from his
seat. Then as he lay by me drunk, or faint, or both, unable to sit up or
to move, with the blood pouring down his clothes and staining the carpet
all round, I saw, as the reader can well believe, a commentary on the
singer’s Bacchanalian song of a somewhat ironical character; but business
is business, and at the music-hall it will not do to harrow up the
feelings of the audience with such sad spectacles. Perfectly insensible,
the poor lad was carried out, while a constable was the means of inducing
his muscular and brutal-looking opponent to leave the hall. Order
restored, the stout party bounded on to the stage, and the hilarity of
the evening—with the exception of here and there a girl who, evidently
not being used to such places, was consequently frightened and pale and
faint for awhile—was as great as ever. The comic singer made no
reference to the unfortunate incident; all he could do was to say what he
had got by heart, and so he went on about the cheerful glass and the fun
of going home powerfully refreshed at an early hour in the morning, and
much did the audience enjoy his picture of the poor wife waiting for her
husband behind the door with a poker, assisting him upstairs with a pair
of tongs, and after she had got him sound asleep meanly helping herself
to what cash remained in his pocket.
For my part, I candidly own I felt more inclined to sympathise with the
wife than with her husband; but the music-hall is bound to stand up for
drinking, for it is by drinking that it lives. If people cared for music
and the drama, they would go to the theatre; but that declines, and the
music-hall flourishes. Astley’s Theatre is a case in point. That has
been an old favourite with the public. At one time, I should imagine,
few places paid better—does not Ducrow sleep in one of the most
magnificent monuments in Kensal Green, and did he not make his money at
Astley’s?—but now there are two flourishing music-halls one on each side
of Astley’s, and as I write I see one of the proprietors, as a plea why
he should be given more time for the payment of a debt, admits that
sometimes they lose at Astley’s as much as forty pounds a week. If
Astley’s is to be made to pay, evidently the sooner it is turned into a
music-hall the better.
Will the London School Boards raise the character of the future public?
is a question to be asked but not to be answered in our time. The real
fact is that amusements have a deteriorating effect on the character of
those who devote themselves to them, and become more frivolous as they
become more popular. This is the case, at any rate, as regards
music-halls. A gentleman the other day, as we were speaking of one of
the most successful of them, said how grieved he was on a visit to it
lately to see the generally lowered tone of entertainment. At one time
the attempt was made to give the people really good music, and there were
selections of operas of first-rate character. Now all that is done away
with, and there is nothing but silly comic singing of the poorest kind.
In another respect also there has been a deterioration—that is, in the
increased sensationalism of the performance. A music-hall audience
requires extra stimulus—the appetite becomes palled, and if a leap of
fifty feet does not “fetch the public,” as Artemus Ward would say, why
then, the leap must be made a hundred; and really sometimes the
spectacles held up for the beery audience to admire are of the most
painful character. I have said that the doubtful female element is not
conspicuous in the music-hall—that is the case as regards those on the
outskirts of London, but the nearer you approach the West-End the less is
that the case; and there is more than one music-hall I could name which
is little better than a place of assignation and rendezvous for immoral
women, and where you may see them standing at the refreshment bars
soliciting a drink from all who pass. Such music-halls are amongst the
most successful of them all, and the proprietor reaps a golden harvest.
I presume it is impossible to tell the number of our metropolitan
music-halls, or to give an idea of the numbers who frequent them, and of
the amount of money spent in them during the course of a single night.
Apparently they are all well supported, and are all doing well. If you
see a theatre well filled, that is no criterion of success. It may be,
for aught you know, well filled with paper, but the music-hall is a
paying audience, and it is cash, not paper, that is placed in the
proprietor’s hands. In the east of London I find that both as regards
the theatres and music-halls the proprietors have a dodge by means of
which they considerably increase their profits, and that is to open a
particular entrance a little before the time for admission, and to allow
people to enter on payment of a small extra fee. It was thus the other
night I made my way into a music-hall. I paid an extra twopence rather
than stand waiting half an hour outside in the crowd. Another thing I
also learned the other night that must somewhat detract from the
reputation of the theatre, considered in a temperance point of view, and
that is the drinking customs are not so entirely banished as at first
sight we may suppose. The thousands who fill up the Vic., and the
Pavilion in Whitechapel, perhaps do not drink quite as much as they would
had they spent the evening at a music-hall, but they do drink,
nevertheless, and generally are provided with a bottle of liquor which
they carry with them, with other refreshment, down into the pit, or up
where the gods live and lie reclined.
If it is impossible to reckon the number of music-halls in London, it is
equally impossible to denote the public-houses with musical performances.
In Whitechapel the other night I discovered two free-and-easies on my way
to one of the music-halls of that district. They were, in reality,
music-halls of a less pretentious character, and yet they advertised
outside the grand attractions of a star company within. Prospects may be
cloudy, trade may be bad, and, as a slang writer remarks, things all
round may be unpromising, but the business of the music-hall fluctuates
very little. Enter at any time between nine and ten and you have little
chance of a seat, and none whatever of a good place. As to numbers it is
difficult to give an idea. Some of the officials are wisely chary in
this matter, and equally so on the subject of profits. The Foresters’
Hall in Cambridge Heath Road advertises itself to hold four thousand
people, and that does not by any means strike me as one of the largest of
the music-halls. Last year the entire British public spent £140,000,000,
or eight shillings a week for each family, in drink, and the music-halls
help off the drink in an astonishing way. As I went into a music-hall
last autumn I saw a receipt for £51 as the profit for an entertainment
given there on behalf of the Princess Alice Fund, and if the attendance
was a little greater, and the profit a little larger than usual, still a
fair deduction from £51 for bad nights and slack times will make a pretty
handsome total at the end of the year after all. Now and then the
music-hall does a little bit of philanthropy in another way, which is
sure to be made the most of in the papers. For instance, last year Mr.
Fort, of the Foresters’ Music Hall, invited some of the paupers from a
neighbouring workhouse to spend the evening with him. I daresay he had a
good many old customers among the lot, whereupon someone writes in _Fun_
as follows: “The Bethnal Green Guardians showed themselves superior to
the Bath Guardians the other day, and in response to the offer of Mr.
Fort, proprietor of the Foresters’ Music-hall, rescinded the resolution
prohibiting the paupers from partaking of any amusement other than that
afforded within the workhouse walls. So the inmates of the union had a
day out, and, we trust, forgot for awhile their sorrows and troubles. It
is whispered that, in addition to pleasing the eye and the ear, the
promoter of the entertainment presented each of his visitors with a
little drop of something of an equally Fort-ified character.” I may add
that the Foresters’ Music-hall claims to be a celebrated popular family
resort, and that evening I was there the performance was one to which a
family might be invited. Of course the family must have a turn for
drink. They cannot go there without drinking. There is the public-house
entrance to suggest drink, the bar at the end of the saloon to encourage
it, and the waiters are there expressly to hand it round, and a
good-natured man of course does not like to see waiters standing idle,
and accordingly gives his orders; and besides, it is an axiom in
political economy that the supply creates the demand.
Here are some of the verses I have heard sung with immense applause:
The spiritualists only can work by night,
They keep it dark;
For their full-bodied spirits cannot stand the light,
So they keep it dark;
They profess to call _spirits_, but I call for _rum_
And _brandy_ or _gin_ as the best medi_um_
For raising the spirits whenever I’m glum;
But keep it dark.
The utter silliness of many of the songs is shown by the following, “sung
with immense success,” as I read in the programme, by Herbert Campbell:
I’ve read of little Jack Horner,
I’ve read of Jack and Jill,
And old Mother Hubbard,
Who went to the cupboard
To give her poor dog a pill;
But the best is Cowardy Custard,
Who came to awful grief
Through eating a plate of mustard
Without any plate of beef.
_Chorus_.
Cowardy Cowardy Custard, oh dear me,
Swallowed his father’s mustard, oh dear me—
He swallowed the pot, and he collared it hot;
For, much to his disgust,
The mustard swelled, Cowardy yelled,
Then Cowardy Cowardy bust.
This is supposed, I presume, to be a good song. What are we to think of
the people who call it so? It is difficult to imagine the depth of
imbecility thus reached on the part of singer and hearers, and is a fine
illustration of the influence of beer and “baccy” as regards softening
the brain. The music-hall singer degrades his audience. Even when he
sings of passing events he panders as much as possible to the passions
and prejudices of the mob. His words are redolent of claptrap and fury,
and are a mischievous element in the formation of public opinion. Heroes
and patriots are not made in music-halls. But rogues and drunkards and
vagabonds—and lazy, listless lives, destitute of all moral aim. There
are respectable people who go to music-halls—women as well as men—but
they get little good there. Indeed, it would be a miracle if they did.
But the great fact is that the music-hall makes young men indulge in
expensive habits—get into bad company, and commence a career which ends
in the jail. Amusement has not necessarily a bad effect, or else it
would be a poor look-out for all. It is as much our duty to be merry as
it is to be wise. It is the drinking at these places that does the
mischief. It is that that leads to a low tone of entertainment, and
deadens the conscience of the young man who thinks he is enjoying life,
and makes the working man forget how the money he squanders away would
make his home brighter, and his wife and children happier, and would form
a nice fund to be drawn on when necessary on a rainy day. The great
curse of the age is extravagant and luxurious living, always accompanied
with a low tone of public intelligence and morality and thought. In the
present state of society we see that realised in the men and women who
crowd our music-halls, and revel in the songs the most improper, and in
the dances the most indelicate.
As I write, another illustration of the pernicious influence of
music-halls appears in the newspapers. At the Middlesex Sessions, John
B. Clarke surrendered to his bail on an indictment charging him with
attempting to wound his wife, and with having wounded George Marshall,
police constable, in the execution of his duty. When Marshall was on
duty in Jubilee Street on the night of November 28th, he heard loud cries
of “Murder” and ‘“Police,” and went to the prisoner’s house. He found
the prisoner and his wife struggling in the passage, and the wife, seeing
him, cried out, “Policeman, he has a knife and has threatened to cut my
throat.” The police-constable closed with the prisoner and endeavoured
to wrest the knife from him, when the prisoner made two stabs at his wife
which fortunately missed her, and another stab which cut the hand of
Marshall, who succeeded in wresting the knife from the prisoner, and took
him to the station. In cross-examination it was elicited that prisoner’s
wife had gone to a music-hall; that her husband, returning home, found
her with two or three young men and women sitting together in his
parlour; that one of the young men kissed her, and that the prisoner,
seeing this, became mad with jealousy, and seized the first thing that
came to his hand. A gentleman, in whose employment the prisoner was,
gave him an exceptionally high character for more than eighteen years,
and expressed his perfect willingness to have him back into his service
and to become security for his good behaviour. The jury convicted the
prisoner of causing actual bodily harm, strongly recommending him to
mercy, and expressing their belief that he had no intention to wound the
policeman. Mr. Prentice said this was a peculiarly sad and painful case.
To wound or even obstruct a policeman in the execution of his duty was a
serious offence; but looking at all the circumstances of the case, the
finding of the jury, and their recommendation to mercy, he sentenced him
to one month’s hard labour, and accepted his employer’s surety that he
would keep the peace for the next three months. The grand jury commended
Marshall for his conduct in the case.
Another thing also may be said. The other evening I was dining with a
lawyer with a large police practice, in what may be called, and what
really is, a suburb of London. My friend is what may be described as a
man of the world, and of course is anything but a fanatic in the cause of
temperance. I spoke of a music-hall in his immediate neighbourhood, and
said I intended dropping in after dinner. “Well,” he said, “the worst of
the place is that if we ever have a case of embezzlement on the part of
some shop-boy or porter, it is always to be traced to that music-hall. A
lad goes there, is led into expenses beyond his means, thinks it manly to
drink and to treat flash women, and one fine morning it is discovered
that he has been robbing the till, and is ruined for life.”
With these words of an experienced observer, I conclude.